Ambulance service issues call for financial help

The Somerset Area Ambulance Association is hoping for a $120,000 bailout.

“Whether or not we get that amount is another story,” said ambulance association Manager Mark Miller. “But we understand that.”

Miller has spent the past six months speaking with officials from eight municipalities about enlisting their help to offset increased expenses, primarily in workmen's compensation and operating insurance.

“It's sort of been an ongoing process,” Miller said.

Recent Internal Revenue Service returns indicate the association has been incurring annual deficits - most strikingly in 2003, when the association was $117,040 in the red. Returns in 2004 and 2005 also show losses of $7,000 and $42,000.

Miller, who said he is unsure of the reason for the jump in deficits, added that the association has been depleting its savings account to defray costs. He estimated that savings have been cut in half over the past three years alone.

Somerset Ambulance is a primary provider to eight municipalities: the townships of Jefferson, Shade, Quemahoning, Lincoln and Somerset, and the boroughs of Stoystown, Indian Lake and Somerset.

According to Miller, Quemahoning, Shade and Indian Lake have already agreed to donate funds. Although the amounts were less than what was requested, Miller said the association is grateful for the assistance.

The totals asked of each municipality were determined by the service call volume in each, he added.

Miller attended Monday's Somerset Borough Council meeting to follow up on the ambulance service's $36,000 request.

He said about 30 percent of Somerset Ambulance's calls come from the borough, and the $36,000 figure is roughly 30 percent of the $128,000 goal.

But borough Manager Benedict G. Vinzani Jr. said the total is unprecedented.

“We have not had a request of this magnitude before,” he said, adding that the borough's largest donation in recent history was $2,000 to Somerset Inc.

According to Vinzani, the council has allocated $11,800 in the 2009 budget for donations to area agencies.

How much the borough will donate, he said, will be a topic revisited at next month's meeting.

“It's been referred to the borough's finance committee for recommendation,” Vinzani added.

He did not say, however, if the council would make a decision at that meeting.

Miller said the paid ambulance service has never received funding from the borough.

“Since 1966, we've kind of been doing this on our own,” he said.

But he added that he hoped their requests will not affect other organizations that rely on municipal donations.

“I don't want some other service to suffer because of us,” Miller added.